On Frozen Blog

The recent and dramatic injuries suffered by Chris Clark and Jamie Heward led us to wonder what might be the 10 worst injuries suffered by NHLers, all time. This was no labor of the prurient or ghastly on our part, but rather a testament to the courage and guts elite hockey players regularly display, and the inherent dangers they face on every shift.
Tales of terror on the ice are legion, and can be culled from virtually every professional league as well as Europe, but we decided to restrict our survey to the NHL’s.
Mark Howe suffered one of the worst injuries in hockey history on December 27, 1980. Late in the third period Howe crashed feet-first into the goal cage and basically impaled himself on a metal post at the center of the net. This injury led directly to the contemporary cage’s redesign, which no longer features any exposed steel within. Howe was removed from the ice on a stretcher, treated in the hospital for a deep laceration to his left thigh and buttocks. The puncture narrowly missed the base of his spine, but he also could have bled to death.
Trent McCleary’s career with Montreal ended prematurely on January 29, 2000, when he was struck in the throat by a slapshot from Philadelphia’s Chris Therien while he fell to the ice attempting to block the shot. This recollection from pucksandbooks: “By coincidence I happened to be following this game on a bar TV, and I remember telling my date that night not to look at the television screen the moment this injury happened, knowing that a number of replays were to follow.” The injury caused McCleary’s throat to immediately collapse, making it difficult to breathe. Several surgeries were required before he could regain his speech. He never played again.

On March, 1989, Buffalo’s Clint Malarchuk suffered one of the visually most gruesome injuries the sport has ever seen. Steve Tuttle of the St. Louis Blues and the Sabre’s Uwe Krupp collided near Malarchuk’s goal crease, and Tuttle’s skate caught Malarchuk on the neck, slicing open his external carotid artery. With pools of blood filling virtually the entirety of the goal crease, Malarchuk somehow left the ice under his own power with the assistance of the Sabres’ team trainer. Many in the Buffalo arena were physically sickened by the sight, with seven fainting and two suffering heart attacks.
Television cameras covering the game instantly cut away from the sight of Malarchuk. Malarchuk spent only one night in the hospital, and was back on the ice with his team two weeks later. However, Marlarchuk’s performance never regain top form over the next few years, to the point that he left the NHL.
Mr. Hockey, Gordie Howe, attempted to bodycheck Ted “Teeder” Kennedy in a playoff game in 1950. Kennedy stopped abruptly and Howe went crashing into the end boards head first. He lay unconscious on the ice, blood covering his face, until emergency staff removed him on a stretcher.
The injury had the remarkable effect of initiating the first 24-hour radio broadcasts in Howe’s home province of Saskatchewan, as reports on his condition were offered at the top of each hour while Howe remained in the hospital. He had fractured his skull and wasn’t expected to survive, and an operation was performed to relieve the pressure on his brain. He was obviously out for the rest of the playoffs, but he did make a remarkable recovery . . . in the sense that he went on to continue playing professional hockey into the 1980s! The Wings, stirred by Howe’s injury, defeated the Leafs in overtime of the seventh game, ending Toronto’s three-year reign as Stanley Cup champions.
While Howe went head-first into the boards, Washington Capital Pat Peake went feet-first into the end boards during a playoff game in Pittsburgh in 1996, with calamitous results. He had shattered his right heel. The injury was so severe that media accounts at the time included the assessments of various orthopedists who claimed that its like was seen only among construction workers who’d endured significant falls . . . from platforms and highrises. Peake underwent numerous extensive surgeries, but he never truly recovered. He returned in time to play some games with the Portland Pirates and a few more with the Caps, but he was snakebit by additional injuries — including a concussion from a car wreck.
Peake’s is not normally mentioned among hockey’s all-time worst injuries, but the freakish quality of it — at OFB, we hadn’t seen it likes before or since — we thought merited the mention. Peake retired for good in 1998, and his was a promising career lost prematurely.
Howie Morenz’s career ended on January 28, 1937, when he suffered a multiple fracture broken leg. But he lost more than his career that night: it eventually took his life as a result of complications on March 8, 1937.
Morenz was actually recovering well in the hospital. Friends and other players came to see him and brought him beer and booze. Legend has it that Howie became upset and suffered a nervous breakdown over reports suggesting that a benefit game was going to be played for him. (It eventually was.) The Canadiens’ team physician X-rayed Morenz’s leg and found blood clots on the morning of March 8th, 1937, and while an operation was scheduled for the following day, Howie never made it to the operating table. Attempts to revive him failed, and Morenz was dead at the age of 34.
Irvine “Ace” Bailey was one of the top left wingers of his day, but his career abruptly ended on a December night in 1933, at the hands of infamous Eddie Shore. Shore, the story has it, viciously checked Bailey from behind, apparently in retaliation for a hit he had received from King Clancy moments earlier. Bailey’s body was hurled through the air, and he landed on his head. Bailey recovered enough to attend what emerged as the NHL’s first All-Star game, held at Maple Leaf Gardens, for his benefit on February 14, 1934. (If you notice, the modern All-Star game is held every February.) Bailey and Shore shook hands and embraced at center ice before the game began. But Bailey never played hockey again.
Bailey’s head injury didn’t usher in players wearing helmets, but Bill Masterson’s did. On January 13, 1968, the Minnesota North Star center struck his head on the ice during a game against the Oakland Seals. He died forty-eight hours later. It’s a wonder this didn’t happen more often in the pre-helmet days, but it’s also true that players had far greater respect for one another precisely because of this vulnerability.
That we would include Eric Lindros’ concussion at the shoulder of Scott Stevens in the spring of 2000 might surprise some readers. But here’s how serious and significant a blow it was: it altered a playoff series (the Devils were trailing and went on to win); the ferocity of Stevens’ hit was such that it ranks among the most replayed bits of sports brutality on television, even years later; Lindros, leading up to this devastating collision, had already suffered a number of significant concussions, and had already been urged by some medical advisers to hang it up; the immediate aftermath saw Lindros lying in an unmoving heap on the ice, silencing the entirety of the sold-out First Union Center and ocassioning the most dire worries about his condition by a national television viewing audience; and it ultimately severed the relationship between a franchise player and his drafting organization, as Lindros would go on to allege malfeasance and indifference by Flyers’ medical staff and management.
Also in 2000, while Toronto Maple Leafs’ defenseman Bryan Berard was struck in the eye by the stick of Ottawa Senators’ forward Marian Hossa. In the hospital room after the incident, Berard was told that he’d likely lose the eye. No one in hockey expected him to play again. But he did recover enough to suit up in the league again, and play well, yet his damaged eye, after seven eye operations, improved his vision in the eye only to 20/600 . . . or legally blind.